Hands On With Galaxy Buds and Samsung's New Smartwatch

At Unpacked, we tried out Samsung's new Bluetooth earphones, the Galaxy Buds. They delivered clear-sounding audio in the noisy demo room, but have some weird quirks.

Samsung's Galaxy Buds mark the company's latest attempt to deliver wireless audio in a small package. But the result is a mixed bag.

PCMag tried out the Bluetooth earphones at Samsung's Unpacked event in San Francisco, and they delivered clear-sounding audio in the noisy demo room. A simple tap on either side of the earpiece easily paused and played the music.

Other features were not as seamless. The Galaxy Buds connect to the voice assistant on your phone, whether it be Google Assistant or Samsung's Bixby. All you have to do is place your finger on an earbud for a couple seconds, and the voice assistant will activate.

The good news is that the Galaxy Buds were generally able to understand our voice commands. Unfortunately, its answers were almost inaudible and sounded more like a whisper. It was odd, since music and YouTube videos came through loud and clear. Hopefully, Samsung can iron out the issue before the earbuds arrive on March 8 for $129.

The Galaxy Buds also come with an ambient sound function that can let in the surrounding noise. The only problem is that feature was akin to placing a seashell next to your ears and created some eerie echoes inside the crowded demo room where we tried it out.

Still, the earpieces sat comfortably and firmly inside our ears. Like Apple's AirPods, the Galaxy Buds also come in a small container that'll begin charging the earphones once you place them inside.

One nifty trick the Galaxy Buds has is a "device-on-device" wireless charging feature. Basically you can re-charge the earphones by placing them on the back of a smartphone that supports the Qi wireless technology standard. We tried it and the only issue is that it's not entirely clear when the phone is charging the earpieces. The only way you can tell is if the phone vibrates when you place the earbuds on the phone's back, but the vibration is pretty subtle. It also isn't clear how fast a phone can charge the Galaxy Buds.

In addition to the earphones, we also tried out Samsung's latest smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch Active, which arrives on March 8as well for $199.

We were pretty impressed with the device. It's light, not too expensive, and full-featured. Although it runs Samsung's Tizen OS, the product's software is compatible with iOS and Android devices. It ran smoothly and the touch controls were quite responsive. In addition, the 28mm watch has a pretty crisp screen.

However, at the $199 price, you're getting a watch with a rubber-like band, so don't expect a lot of luxury. We also couldn't get the voice controls to work in the demo room, but you should be able to talk to Bixby on the device.

The Galaxy Watch Active has two buttons on the side. The top one will return to the home screen, while the bottom button will access the watch's settings. Samsung told us the watch can last about two days on one charge. Like the Galaxy Buds, the smartwatch supports device-on-device charging, too.

About the Author

Michael has been a PCMag reporter since October 2017. He previously covered tech news in China from 2010 to 2015, before moving to San Francisco to write about cybersecurity. His Twitter is @Michael_Kan. See Full Bio